You love him.
She gasped. “I do not! Don’t ever say that again.” Her thoughts laughed at her
You love him. Admit it.
“Please...stop! I can’t handle emotions. They’ll destroy me. Please have mercy on me and stop this, you foolish heart.”
I’ll only stop when you admit how you really feel.
“I’m... I’m so scared. Caring makes me so vulnerable. I can’t bear the thought of someone hurting me.”
She looked up. VD stood inches away from her face.
She startled and jumped six inches, straight up. After re-gathering her wits, she said, “You know, VD: this is getting old. I really do wish you’d announce yourself...”
VD continued to stare at her -- hard. “Listen to me, you foolish demon. I’m a demon too, and I’m at least woman enough to admit when I care; I don’t mind being vulnerable. You, on the other hand, are a coward.”
She stared back at VD, trying to say something mean, but it wouldn’t come out. A long breath rushed out of her lungs. “Okay, VD. You win. My heart has won the battle with me. I can’t deny that I...” She spoke very quietly. “... care.”
VD laughed. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“Don’t push me ...” The dark angel returned, and flexed her sharp nails for emphasis,
“Try to catch me. Love is more powerful than hate, and I love—you hate.” A strange look she had never seen before covered VD’s face. “I love you Poisonous. What do you think of that?”
It stung. “Don’t say that! Not only is that un-demon like, I can’t cope with... love.” She spat out the word like it was poison, stronger than hers. She lunged for VD, but VD swiftly sidestepped her, and moved to another part of the room.
“You’d better learn, because you’re my best friend, and I do love you. Not only that, I like the way it feels. Moreover, I’m thinking seriously of talking to Evie more about the hope that lies within her.”
“Oh, now you’ve gone and done it. I’m going to go to Lucifer now, and have you exiled to the pit forever. You’re nothing but a traitor.”
“You, know what, Poisonous? I might even start praying for you myself.”
Not being able to stand it anymore, she lunged at her, talons bared and ready to inflict deadly poison.
VD’s response caught her completely off guard. “I rebuke you in the name of The Lamb.”
The words hit her like a blow from a cannonball. The powerful force of the Light stopped her dead in her tracks. Eyes wide open, she stared at VD incredulously. “I don’t believe you just said that. You’ve becoming a traitor. I think you’d better leave, and leave now!”
VD just smiled. “Love you, Poisonous. See you soon.”
“Not if I can help it. Now please leave.”
VD turned around slowly, and smiling, left.
Six
Tuesday, July 8th
The morning sun rose on the District of Columbia, promising another hot, sultry July day. At about nine thirty in the morning, Poisonous stretched, got her human body out of bed and searched for a bagel bakery where delivery was part of their services. She ordered a bagel and lox, with extra onions from the bagel shop in Union Station, and had them deliver the sandwich, along with a half-dozen cheddar jalapeno bagels. The thought of garlic shmear and plenty of extra spicy hot sauce on spicy bagels made her stomach rumble.
While she waited on her order to arrive, she brought her computer to life, logged into the Dark Web, and noticed, among other things, that an ad appeared in a community web page for weapons sales to ISIS-based organizations. One such organization needed about seven hundred such weapons, to include hand held pistols, high powered rifles, hand held grenade launchers and explosives of various categories. An email sent to the buyer got an immediate response, indicating they would be interested in doing business.
Poisonous
Name your terms
SWaddi (Buyer)
I will pay you top price for everything
Poisonous
Very well; send me your order, and I will have it delivered to you. However, I require payment in advance.
SWaddi
Okay. I will send you a purchase order. When you have determined your price, I will give you my credit card information.
Poisonous
I will send you an invoice with the price, and upon payment, will have the goods shipped to you.
SWaddi
Then we are agreed.
A half an hour later, the Purchase Order arrived in her email as an attachment. The order went to the weapons dealer, so all she needed to do was wait on the credit card information before the order went through. SWaddi sent her credit card information, and she charged just north of one half billion dollars for one hundred fifty million dollars worth of armaments. The automated clearing house approved the transaction, and she smiled at making a handsome profit.
The weapons arrived at the destination indicated by SWaddi the next day. In the early afternoon, she perused her Swiss bank account, and noticed the transaction was denied. Calling the Credit Card company, she demanded an explanation as to why the transaction failed to go through.
“It seems the a stop payment was applied to the transaction: the transaction was cancelled by the owner of the credit card.”
Fury made her entire human body shake, and her blood pressure rise, but she calmed herself so she could finish the conversation with the customer service representative. “Thank you miss. I appreciate your help.”
Normally gray-green eyes burned red hot, and she changed into Poisonous. Knowing where the buyer resided, and sensing his emotional signature from the conversation with him, she flew towards the Middle East, and landed, guided by her keen olfactory abilities towards the scent of arrogance, and thievery. A modern high rise building in the now modern city of Dubai, United Arab Emirates stood before her, and the scent overpowered her senses, as they were on high alert. Shivering with anger, she changed to a human, and Perri walked into the building, and approached the concierge desk. “I’m looking for Sadiq Waddi. He works for the Dubai Trading Company.”
The concierge answered, “He is located on the ninth floor. Let me call him and advise him that you are here.”
The concierge waited for an answer, and then said, “Mr. Waddi, sir: you have a visitor…hold on a moment…” She turned to Poisonous, and asked, “Who are you, and what is the nature of your business?”
“I’ve been sent by his uncle, Uwayam Waddi, as a present. He will understand.” Powerful suggestion of sexual pleasure travelled up to the ninth floor.
“You may go up,” the concierge said.
“Thank you.” She strode to the elevator, pushed the button for the ninth floor, and within seconds, the elevator door opened. A receptionist asked her as she walked in, “May I help you?”
“Yes; I’m here to see Sadiq Waddi…he’s expecting me.”
“He’s in the third office on the right.”
“Thank you.”
Forcing herself to remain calm, she walked casually towards his office. Looking in, he saw a middle aged man, who looked up from his papers at her, taking her in and undressing her with his eyes. “Are you the girl my uncle sent to me?”
“Yes. I am” She forced herself to sound like she wanted to please him.
“Well, come here, and close the door.” He smiled and licked his lips, an obvious sign of foreplay.
She closed the door behind her, and walked towards him, sitting in the chair in front of his desk. “So, Sadiq: I hear you recently made a purchase of armaments from a trader in the United States.”
“How would you know of such things? Women do not participate in men’s business…”
“You see, sweetie, you cheated the buyer out of the price of the armaments, by stopping payment on the order.”
His eyes widened. “What do you know about my dealings?”
“I know that I’m the seller of those armaments, and you screwed me royally.”
/> “Well, it serves you right. Women should not be involved in such business.”
“Oh, you’re wrong, Sadiq. Not only am I involved, but I intend to get my money…”
“Hah! You can’t even…”
Before he finished his sentence, Poisonous took on her demonic form, and glared at the son of a dog who had tried to hustle her out of over a half billion dollars. “I’ll show you what this woman will do to scum like you…” Long tentacles travelled to the victim and wrapped around his arms and legs. bared fangs gleamed in her wide open mouth. He looked in horror as she jumped at him before he could move. Frozen in terror, the only movement he made was to let his mouth hang open. Then she sunk her fangs into his neck, drained the blood from his body and burped with pleasure. As he slumped down in his chair, she spat highly toxic venom at his face, and watched with immense satisfaction as he disintegrated into nothing.
“As I said, sweetie, don’t trifle with your superiors.” Admiring her work, she quipped, “I know the vampire things is rather cliché, but…what the Hell; I was in the mood.” Immediately, she dialed the number of the credit card company, and imitating Sadiq’s voice exactly, said, “Yes. I recently stopped payment on a credit card transaction to one of my suppliers. I would like to go ahead and allow payment to go through for the transaction to a Poisonous Perri, LLC.”
The voice on the other end of the line consented, reversing the stop payment.
“Is there anything else I can help you with, sir?”
“That will do.”
The phone went back into its receiver, her legs went up on the desk, and she lit one of his cigars—very expensive ones at that—and poured herself a drink from a bottle of some very expensive American Scotch. “Yes…now this is more like it.” She cackled at the stupidity of such men who thought women were only property to be used for their pleasure. “You haven’t met Poisonous, obviously—but you will, gentlemen; you will.”
* * *
Dan Hightower, a ten year veteran of the FBI in his early thirties answered the summons of a call from his boss, Fred Hammond.
“I need you to come to my office right away,” said Fred. “There is an urgent matter we must discuss.”
“I’m coming, boss. Be there in a minute.”
Dan walked down the hall, and reaching his boss’ doorway, announced himself. “What’s up, boss?”
“Have a seat, Dan,” Hammond said.
After Dan sat down, Hammond began.
“You see, Dan, there are many questionable, and many more downright illegal transactions being conducted on the so called ‘Dark Web.’”
“I’ve heard about that. People use the operating system called ‘Tor.’ In itself, it’s just a very protected network using layers of encryption, then layers of un-decryption, which is finally readable as an fully unencrypted data at the last node.”
“Yes,” his boss agreed. “It was developed by the Navy to be a real secure network. Unfortunately, there are reprobates out there who engage in all sorts of illegal activity, including human trafficking.”
“Yeah, so I’ve heard.”
“Well, we’ve been informed of a rising number of youth or young people who have been abducted or have disappeared, in almost all cases to be sold into being sex slaves.”
Dan felt hairs rise on his neck and arms. The thought of all these innocent children being forced into acts of depravity for someone else’s gain made nausea creep into his gut and his blood pressure rise. “I can almost deal with illegal sales of weapons to adversaries, or even the sale of drugs. But destroying innocent children makes me sick on a much deeper level.”
“Well, here’s the thing,” his boss said. “I’m putting you on a special task force to hunt down these traffickers, mostly in the States, but potentially all over the world. You’ll be working with local Law Enforcement Officers to help track down and shut down these scum. The more we catch, the more we can get them to rat on others. If need be, we can even go to foreign countries working in conjunction with liaison offices there. We have legal attachés in several countries.”
“Well, I’m up for that. Tell me what the particulars of the op are, and I’ll be more than glad to get on with it, including working with the local LEOs. I’ll take personal satisfaction in putting away the scum that victimize young girls.”
* * *
Evie felt the need to pray, knowing that Poisonous, being always on the prowl for trouble, had raised her ante. There seemed to be no end in site. “I’m amazed at what trouble a demon will cause, even in a human body.”
No sooner had she said the words than she felt a familiar heaviness in her bedroom. “Hi, VD. What’s going on?”
VD took on human form. “How did you know it was me?”
“The Father told me you would visit your old partner, and I suspect you heard me praying for Poisonous and were coming here to distract me.”
VD turned self-consciously away. “Please don’t rebuke me. I promise I will do nothing evil.”
The forlorn look in her eyes didn’t escape her. “Is something wrong, VD?”
“It’s hard, Evie. I miss her terribly, and I can’t be near her much, because all we used to do was encourage each other to be evil. Now that I can’t do that, there’s just no satisfaction in it any more. Good grief, I haven’t even been victimizing anyone since Poisonous came down here. I’m not doing a very good job as a demon.”
VD’s heart obviously had been softening. Silent thanks went up to the Father. “Well, honey. I don’t know what to tell you. All I can do is pray for you.”
VD gasped. She turned away from her for several moments, then looked back at her sheepishly.
“Well, I guess it couldn’t hurt too much. Just go easy on me. I know that those prayers are powerful, and they weigh heavily on our evil souls.”
“It’s up to you. You can go always go on like you are.”
A short, silent pause preceded, “Well, I don’t much like the way I am right now. Do what you must.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I won’t even run away.”
She couldn’t pass up the obvious invitation. A prayer went up for VD right away. Just keep working on her heart, Lord.
“Thanks, Evie,” said the softening dark angel. “I like the way being at peace feels. I’m beginning to like it, and want to know more about Lord Yehovah and the Lamb.”
“I believe you will find those answers, VD. Just be willing to have your eyes opened and your heart changed.”
“I will,” said the not-so-dark angel, who started to cry.
“What’s wrong, honey?” Evie scooted over to her and gave her a hug, which made her cry even more.
“I like being happy for a change,” she managed, sniffling. “It’s so much easier to deal with than being full of hate and maliciousness. Thank you, Evie. I love you.”
“Awww. Thanks VD. I love you too.”
* * *
The prospects for the day had been good: lunch with Roger, and ‘dessert’ at his condo. Energized, she glowed with satisfaction. “You do that so well, I think I may want a refill.”
“You should know by now that you need no invitation.”
“Then fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.”
She lay next to him; positively glowing. “I admire you Roger. You’re my equal in sexual prowess.”
“I do what I can...” He grinned.
Beep! She looked at her cell phone. Tyrell wanted to meet her tonight at a club called Zanzibar. “Well, sweetie. Another client. Gotta run. You know: ‘places to go, people to see.’”
He sighed. “Yes. The demands of a professional... err... huntress.”
“Oh, face it. You love me for it.”
“Well... I wouldn’t go so far as to say ‘love.’ But I do admire your talent.”
“As well you should. See you.” She walked out the door, and headed towards the U Street/Cordozo Metro station. The afternoon sun of the hot July day bore dow
n on her human body. The clock on a nearby building read 2:36 p.m. Time on her hands always made her crave action—anything to keep her from boredom. After a few moments thought, she decided to head for Houston to see how her charge was doing. A short flight later, she landed in the bathroom of the expensive hotel where her colleagues, Oily Lies and Vile Destruction ran their victimizing business. Crossing the lobby and going into a doorway behind the reception area, she walked into a room with ‘Victor D’Archelles on the door. Knocking so as not to startle him, she said, “May I speak with you Victor?”
“Come in,” he answered.
She walked in, perusing his office. “Not exactly as plush as I would have expected, but I imagine it will have to do.”
“This is only my office,” he answered. “I live in the Presidential Suite on the Penthouse floor. Work does not require luxury. I find I concentrate better on business when I’m not distracted by luxuries. Now, how may I help you, Poisonous?”
At first, hearing he lived in a Penthouse sparked a twinge of jealousy. She had been forced to live in a two-bedroom apartment, with a follower of the Light, and Lord Yehovah himself had ordered it. Nevertheless, she reigned in her emotions, and concentrated on why she had come here. “I understand your point, Vile Destruction” she acquiesced. “However, I came to see how our young charge is doing. Has she acclimated to her new environment?”
“Well, things got off to a rocky start,” he said. “Our client complained that she was unwilling to have sex, and that he had to force her to comply. She accused him of ‘raping’ her. I had a serious talk with her this morning, emphasizing my point with mind control, that her duty is to entertain the men who have requested her services, which includes meeting their sexual desires. She left in a much better frame of mind.”
Poisonous: A Visit To Earth (DC Angels Book 2) Page 8
